Stopped
by Starknight
Summary: Joshua's thoughts on the hill in San Francisco, sort of a take on who he is and why he ends up the way he does. -Complete-


**Disclaimer: I own zip.**

**Stopped **

Can you see it

Past the veil

It's waiting

Just reach out

You can touch

if you aren't scared

You can see it

The wind tugged at his hair. It was so much like before. He remembered the autumn sunlight and the breeze. They were going to be explorers. It was just waiting for them.

But here there was no sunlight. It was dark and strange. But he had promised. Yet they had not told him it would be like this. Why did it hurt? He had always been hurting.

Yes but then the hurting had stopped. Now there was just the noise. He had to stop it. Mother, why doesn't it stop? Mother, why does the noise hurt me? He had been told it would not hurt. He was going to be strong.

Except what was he supposed to do? If he was strong he should be able to run and play. But it was dark and the wind was cold. Sis had always been there to turn on the light when the dark was scary. But where was she? Sis…

Sis was always smiling and yelling… but now Sis was quiet. Her hair was strange and… It hurt the noise was coming again. Something was in his hand. He could see his hand moving but that couldn't be his hand. It had to be something else like a film. Yes, he had heard about them. The moving pictures. He had wanted to be an actor in a film once. But being an explorer was more exciting.

Of course Sis would come too and someone else. Someone strange. Who had it been? No, that hurt too. It would just be Sis, because it just wouldn't work without her. But it had been so long. He missed her.

His hand was still rising, it was holding that something. It was heavy and even colder than the wind. For a moment he recognized it, a gun. But why would he have that? He had had a toy gun once, but it had gotten lost. Maybe he had found it again.

The snap of the recoil hurt stung his palm and shot through his wrist. It was strange. But there was so much noise. The pain didn't matter all he had to do was stop it, stop them all.

It was a strange sort of feeling when things stopped. All the whispers grew silent and the air around him felt cooler and quieter than it had been before. But it wasn't easy to stop the sounds and the motions that nearly overwhelmed him.

It was like trying to drink from a cup that was too full. It ended up pouring over him and making him choke. Even now up above the bright lights below, especially now. The noise was tearing at his thoughts. Some things sounded right but they hurt too.

Things got all mixed up then and the colors smeared together. Sis would fix it though, she always did. But not even Sis could make it stop hurting. It wasn't that she didn't want to, she just couldn't. But it made him so angry that she felt that way. It made him so angry that he couldn't do-

But now he could; there was power now. He could feel it all around him. It seemed to be pouring out of the sky into the air and onto the ground. Something about it made him feel a little sick though as if he had run too far or swallowed something he shouldn't have.

The noise whispered in his mind. But he couldn't be wrong. It was so important what he was doing. He was doing it because he needed to. It would be alright though; someone would tell him if it was wrong.

But the noise was so loud. He couldn't think. It was saying…something… He should listen to what it was saying, but it hurt _so_ much.

Maybe it would be better if it stopped, all of it stopped. But he had tried that before. The noise was everywhere. It was in the earth, the people around him, in _him._ Everywhere, absolutely everywhere, not even the Antarctic or the Amazon would be free from the noise.

He couldn't leave to escape it, but if it was in him maybe he could find it, make it stop. If only things would slow down so he could look at them and think about what he should do, but the noise was so insistent and it was all moving so fast, sliding around and away.

It was a part of him, not like his arms or legs but a part of _him_, part of Joshua Christopher. The noise was there. It was outside and inside and it couldn't be stopped. But if he stopped-

If he stopped then the noise inside would stop. It felt so good when the noise outside stopped it would be even better if he stopped it, if he stopped Joshua Christopher. But Sis would be lonely, who would go exploring with her then? But there was the noise and Sis was so far away. It was so dark, he was frightened.

Someone should help, they should tell him what to do. But there was only the noise. And he had to stop it inside, stop the hurting and the spinning colors and the dreams and the everything. If he stopped the inside the outside wouldn't hurt.

It was easy. He had found it, he knew everything there was to know here in the inside. The night was so pretty. But it was inside he reached.

And stopped-

Alone

It's spinning around

So quick to come and go

He's asking and answering

But there's only one

Alone

On the inside

But not alone

Never

Alone

Always everywhere

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_Well, there it's my first anime fic. And yep, I know it's short and strange, but that tends to be my style, I hope you enjoy. _


End file.
